Thou Definition

thou

thous

pronoun

Used to indicate the one being addressed, especially in a literary, liturgical, or devotional context.

American Heritage

Personal pronoun in the second person singular.

Webster's New World

Synonyms:

Synonyms:
thyself
yourself
thee

noun

thous

Thousand.

Webster's New World

A thousand, especially of dollars.

American Heritage

(dated UK) A unit of length equal to one-thousandth of an inch.

Wiktionary

Synonyms:

verb

To address (a person) using the pronoun thou, especially as an expression of familiarity or contempt.

I thou thee, thou traitor! (Edward Coke to Walter Raleigh)

Avaunt, caitiff, dost thou thou me! I am come of good kin, I tell thee! (The morality play Hickscorner, ca. 1530)

If thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss[...] (Twelfth Night 3.2, Sir Toby Belch to Sir Andrew, egging him on to pick a fight with another, where one would expect one knight courteously to say to another, "If you thou him...").

Don't thou them as thous thee! (Yorkshire English admonition to overly familiar children)

Wiktionary

(intransitive) To use the word thou.

Wiktionary

Origin of Thou

From Middle English thou, thow, thu, þou, from Old English þū, from Proto-Germanic *þū, from Proto-Indo-European *túhâ‚‚. Akin to Old Frisian thÅ« (West Frisian do), Old Saxon thÅ« (Low German du), Old Dutch thÅ« (Middle Dutch du, Limburgish doe), Old High German dÅ« (German du), Old Norse þú, (Icelandic þú, Danish du, Norwegian du, Swedish du), Latin tu, Ancient Greek σύ (sý) (Modern Greek εσύ (esý)).

From Wiktionary
Middle English from Old English thū second person nominative sing. personal pron. tu- in Indo-European roots

From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
Shortened from thousandth.

From Wiktionary
Shortened from thousand.

From Wiktionary